B-to-B Facebook 101: How to Engage Your Followers with Interesting Status Updates
In last week’s blog post, we showed you how to create an effective B-to-B Facebook business page to generate sales leads for your company. Now, we’re going to explain how you can build engagement on Facebook by posting interesting status updates.
The Importance of Posting Company Updates on Facebook
While designing your business page and adding custom tabs are important, it’s worth noting that many people who “like” your page may never visit it again. That’s why posting status updates is the key to the success of your business page. Even if people who liked your page never return to it, you can still engage them by posting status updates that show up in their Facebook news feed.
Facebook status updates (also called “wall posts”) can consist of text, a photo or a video. To maximize your Facebook exposure, you’ll need to create valuable content and post it as one of the following types of status updates:
- Text: Post a text update (250 characters maximum) with a hyperlink that displays a thumbnail image.
- Photo: Post your update as a photo, then add a brief comment and a shortened URL.
- Video: Post your update as a video with a brief description or comment (according to HubSpot’s report, The Science of Facebook 2011, status updates that include the word “video” are shared 30% more on Facebook than posts that do not).
To post a status update, click in the Status box near the top left corner of your Facebook wall and type the text you want to share. If you want to post the status update as a photo or video, click the Photo/Video link above the Status box.
Once you begin posting status updates, you’ll also want to opt-in to receive Email Notifications when people post to, comment on or message your business page (this option is on the Your Settings tab of the Admin Panel). In addition, be sure to post several interesting status updates to your page before you begin inviting others to “like” it – and to continue posting on a regular basis to engage your new followers.
Now that you’ve populated your company’s business page, you’ll need to find people who are interested in the information that your company is posting on Facebook. We will talk more about this in next week’s blog post on building an audience.
Ruby
July 30, 2013Great job on the newly redesigned website and great informative post as always. Keep writing!
Eileen O'Connor
July 30, 2013Thanks for the kind words Ruby, glad you liked the post (and our brand new website … just launched it today)!
Lori B
July 31, 2013Great post. Sometimes it’s hard to find interesting statuses to post.
Eileen O'Connor
July 31, 2013Thanks for the comment Lori! Including a photo or video in your posts will make them more likely to get liked, clicked and shared on Facebook.
Ivette
July 31, 2013Hi Eileen,
I love your post, I can’t stress enough that engaging status updates will followers. It’s important to always have a mix of posts to ensure all followers are getting awesome updates. Love it.
Ivette
Eileen O'Connor
July 31, 2013Thanks Ivette! Having a mix of posts is important, including sharing content posted by other pages (instead of an endless stream of self-promotional posts).
K&A Business Consulting
July 31, 2013Great tips for those just starting out. I love how you included the screenshots as well!
Eileen O'Connor
July 31, 2013Thanks for the comment Keisha! I always like to see screenshots when I’m learning, so I include them whenever it seems helpful.
Kathy
July 31, 2013Thanks for this post Eileen. Even after having my page for so long I still have trouble knowing what to post to make my fans happy and want to share.
Eileen O'Connor
July 31, 2013You’re welcome Kathy, hope these tips will help you. We’ll be providing more Facebook tips during the next couple of weeks.
Michael Fox
July 31, 2013“continue posting on a regular basis to engage your new followers.” YES! Consistency is so important to a pages success. It’s very difficult to engage your current fans, let alone get new ones, if you only post once every few days. I’ve found 3 – 4 posts per day to be a good number for me.
Eileen O'Connor
July 31, 2013Thanks Michael, what you’re doing is working because you have a very engaging page!
Sonja
August 1, 2013Love the look of your blog. Nice and clean, easy to read and of course, great content.
Eileen O'Connor
August 1, 2013Thanks Sonja, glad you enjoyed the content and the look (we just relaunched our blog and website on Monday).